Tuesday, January 17, 2006

It is my pleasure to be once again guest blogging on Poop and Boogies. Today's post is meant to make all you parents out there who may occasionally question what kind of job you are doing, feel a whole lot better.

One morning last week, Max is happily watching NOGGIN, his favorite channel, Luna, our dog, is sniffing her way around the backyard, and I am cleaning up from breakfast before an appointment with a contractor. Our next door neighbors have a very sweet cat named Stormy, who occasionally will come into our backyard and, among other things, do her business. And occasionally, as some dogs are known to do, our lovely beast, Luna, likes to dig up these tasty little treats and, you guessed it, savor Stormy's homemade delicacies, to put it mildly.

Of course, I find this absolutely repugnant, so go out back to stop her and bring her inside, when OUR cat, who is an indoor cat, tries to make a break for it. Impressed with my own speed and agility, I quickly shut the back door before he is able to make his escape.

After reprimanding Luna for her incredibly uncivilized behavior (even for a dog) we make our way back to the door when...

Uh-oh, why is it locked? We never use the door knob lock, we always dead bolt it. Someone must have turned it by accident. No worries, Max is still inside watching TV, I'll just go around front. Nope. Front door is locked. Crap! We started dead bolting the front door since Max can now open it by himself. Ok, think, think, think. Oh, of course, I'll just use the remote garage door opener and go in through the garage! Genius! Thank God the new minivan is unlocked...the.. new.... minivan, that never gets parked in the garage, because there is too much junk in there, so we therefore never bothered to put the remote opener in there. Ok, now I'm sweating it. Wait! The next door neighbors have our key!And they're home! Hallelujah!! Knock on the door-

"We have your key? Umm,ok we'll check." (rifling through some drawers in the next room, there is some urgent whispering that I can't quite make out). Meanwhile, thoughts are racing through my head of what Max could possibly be getting into all by himself back at the home front:Teetering at the top of our 16 + stepstairwell, doing belly flops off the back of the sofa, unplugging kitchen appliancesand sticking forks in the now vacant outlets (yeah, we're mostly childproofed). My God, my God! MY GOD, WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG??????????

"Uh, sorry, but I think we gave your key back to you , Lauren.""Ok, then I need to use your phone, NOW!"

Thank goodness Bill only works 10 minutes away and happened to actually be in the office that day. I raced back home without so much as a goodbye, and thankfully found Max still transfixed by Little Bear (yeah, Little Bear, of all shows- who'da thunk it). So I sat there, whimpering with my face pressed up againstthe sliding glass door, waiting for my hero husband to arrive and save the day, all the while cursing that darn Stormy, gourmet poops and all.

I got a better one. I was bragging about my son's first day of school to his fathers co-workers. Telling them how cute he was heading off on his first day and how it was only a half day but he had all his things with him in his backpack he could barely carry. When one of them said. "Uh, did you say half day?"

"Yes." I said.

"Um, Eva, it's twelve thirty."

I had forgot to pick up my son on his first day of school! I raced back to find that (thank God) I was not the only one. My son was sitting wtih 5 other kids and a teacher having a blast on the front steps.

Punkin once stubbornly locked herself into (and locked me OUT) a bathroom stall. At a Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball game. At Tropicana Stadium. In Florida. While her Daddy just sat watching the game... oblivious to the grief our little 3-1/2 year old was giving me in the ladies room ALL THE WAY UP the stairs from his comfy (quiet) seat...

Just before I had reconciled myself to crawling under the door, she opened it and threw a screaming tantrum all the way out to the car (after I stood at the top of the stairs and asked an usher to get Hubby and and tell him it was time for us to go NOW! -- what? the game was over anyway...)

As we walked the 20 minutes from the stadium to our parked car with a screaming preschooler, admist however many THOUSANDS of people were there that day, one of the other patrons sees/hears Punkin's fit, looks at us and says "Oh, honey, don't worry, I'm sure they'll win next time..."

I once got locked out of my sister's house while housesitting. Went outside to get call one of the dogs, when the other one closed the door with it's wagging tale.I was wearing my longjohn pajamas and clogs.Nice.

Great blog, heard of you guys through your dear friend Lois Lane, and I put a vote in for ya!

When my son was almost 4 and my daughter about ten months, I went out the garage door to take the garbage to the curb. My son, being mischievous, locked the garage door and then went back to the living room to watch TV with his sister. Everything was locked up tight. I tapped on the window, knocked on the front door, then finally started banging on the garage door. By this time, both kids were looking at me through the window like I was the big bad wolf. I ended up using a sledge hammer to knock the doorknob off the garage door so I could get inside. My son still talks about the day I "went crazy and started knocking the house down."

OH MY GOSH! That is probably one of my worst nightmares! I am so glad that everything worked out ok and that Little Bear was doing his job :) Thank goodness for TV!!Great Post!PS we are all dying to hear how your pregnancy is going :)

Oh my....I was stressing with you as I read your post. I'm glad the outcome was good, thank goodness for Noggin! When my oldest was a baby and still in her crib, our dog ran thru to our room, hitting my bedroom door and slamming it shut. I was in my room with the dog and the old door lock wouldn't open. I cried, screamed, panicked and all of that other useful stuff, then finally took the door off of it's hinges and my little one didn't have a clue. The darn dog kept looking up at me like...when are you going to get us out of here...darn dog!

When my 6 year old was almost 2, he locked himself in his bedroom when a girl from church was babysitting for the first time. When we left, we joked about not hesitating to call 911 if need be. I don't think we had cell phones then.

Turns out, she tried for over an hour to get the door opened (it is a strange lock and can be locked from the inside and is tricky to even unlock from in there once you lock it. Can't remember why the lock was on the inside in the first place!?!?) and our son was inside getting scared. The other kids were panicking, which did not help matters! She called her Mom, who said to call 911.

SIX firemen somehow climbed in the tiny window (the room is in the basement. There is a large window that takes up one wall, but they could not get in that one for some reason) and rescued my baby. Apparently the fire trucks pulled away JUST as we pulled up from another direction. I am so glad I did not see them, I would have had a heart attack!!!

My baby was in the local paper and everything! LOL "Toddler locks himself in bedroom".

I also remember one of my foster siblings locking my mom outside when he was about 4. She was knocking on the door and saying "Brucie, let Mommy in." He giggled and just kept saying saying, "Came in, Mom! CAME IN!!" LOL Came in instead of come in:) Little kids are so funny!!!

Oh, great story! I once locked myself out while it was snowing (with already a few inches on the ground). I tried to coax the cat to unlock the door, but she just smirked at me through the window. Not that she could have helped anyway - no opposable thumbs and all. I had to schlep to the neighbors too - we had just moved and it was the first time I'd met them, actually. Great first impression.

Toddler locked the door from the kitchen into the garage. WHILE I was getting something out of the freezer IN the garage. In my nightie. At 6 in the morning. Husband at the gym. All external doors and window locked. Toddler then started crying for "Mama" through the door. Hurling himself at the door, wailing for me. LONGEST 20 minutes of my life.

While I was in the hospital with my husband giving birth to Liam, my brother in law - who was petsitting my two pugs - locked himself out of our house. My husband had the only other keys. Needless to say, Liam won't be in his uncle's care when we go into labor for the next one.